more beer (282). Jig then responds: "No, you wouldn't have" (292). The man gets really defensive when she says this, Jig ignores him. The scene is important because it shows that from the very beginning of the story Jig is talking down to the man and does not have much respect for him. The fact that she is not surprised he's never seen a white elephant. She thinks him to be a narrow-minded pig. A white elephant is something that is unwanted. And this guy never deals with things that he does not want. He just shuts his mind to them. The girl in this seen seems to recognize this fact.Since we see the girl acting with condescension and sarcasm right in the first scene when the couple talks about white elephants, we need to keep this attitude in mind when we read there subsequent conversations. For example. On page 284 Jig says "Then I'll do it. Because I don't care about me." On the same page she also says "I'll do it and then everything will be fine" (284). The man responds to this by saying that "I don't want you to do it if you feel that way" (284). The reader is left asking, "feel what way?" Clearly the man has picked up on something that we the readers have not been told by the narrator of the story. The mans mention of "feel that way" suggests that Jig is not using a sincere tone when she says that she does not care about herself and she will do it to make everything fine. Most likely, drawing on the evidence of the discussion of white elephants, we can conclude that Jig is being sarcastic here. She does care about herself and she does not think everything will be OK. This is an important point.Closer to the end of the story, on page 286, the man keeps making comments like "I don't care anything about it." As has been seen, the man does care about it and Jig has become upset by his insincere statements. She tries to shut him up by saying "please please please please please please stop talking" and also "I'll s...
